Edward S. Chang

Chang likes to think of himself as a Swiss Army knife sort of cyber attorney, skilled at class action litigation, incident response and transaction due diligence.

Clients want an attorney who can handle litigation and regulatory investigations, but they also want one who can address the potential for those risks “at the front end,” addressing day-to-day cyber issues or providing advice during a merger or acquisition, he said.

He and his team did that recently for Del Taco during its $575 million acquisition by Jack in the Box just announced in December. “We provided information that was needed for that diligence,” he said. Jack in the Box “was very interested in all things cyber and privacy in regard to Del Taco,” including compliance with state and federal laws and regulations.

On the litigation side of his practice, Chang is currently defending Del Taco in a statewide class action alleging a breach of employee information. Castillo v. Del Taco LLC, 19STCV20629 (L.A. Super Ct., filed June 13, 2019).

He successfully represented LBM Mortgage Services Inc., the company behind lowermybills.com, in a potential class action under the Telephone Consumer Privacy Act. He and co-counsel won a federal appellate decision that essentially ordered the case to individual arbitration, and the case settled in December. Hansen v. LMB Mortgage Services Inc., No. 20-15272 (9th Cir., June 11, 2021).

He recently concluded an 18-month investigation for a large South Korean steel conglomerate into a phishing incident that resulted in fraudulent wire transfers with significant financial and data losses. “They needed someone who could communicate with the parent [company] in Seoul,” Chang said. “They searched high and low. Apparently, there are not that many cyber lawyers in the U.S. who speak Korean.”

Earlier this year, he and a dozen colleagues spent an intense five months responding to a ransomware attack by a Russian hacker group that impacted a multibillion-dollar global conglomerate and its U.S. subsidiaries. Chang was the lead partner on the investigation.

He and the team worked 24/7 on the response, which he compared to a “frenetic fire drill” where they had to think 14 steps ahead.

“It was like having 10 work streams all of equal priority and importance” at once, he said. “You don’t know what’s going to hit when, and you don’t know what you’re going to find as your investigation unfolds.”

- Don DEBenedictis